Lionboy (14 page)

“Hey there, Lionboy!” called a voice from the deck behind him. It was Major Tib. “Y’all better get back on board right now. We don’t do shore leave without leave. Get back in here and help Maccomo. There’s plenty of work to be done.”

Turning back, disappointed, to the ship, Charlie saw a most peculiar sight. A great crane had been waiting for them on the quay when they cruised in, looming red and white against the sky. It had now sort of leaned in toward the ship, where the entire crew seemed to be scurrying around on deck at the foot of one of the masts. A huge chain hung from the crane, and was, Charlie realized, being attached near the base of the mast. Another chain hung in midair—no, it was moving. Halfway up the mast another knot of sailors were busying themselves with something.

Suddenly a cry went up, the sailors all moved away at once, and the mast was uprooted like a great tree in a high wind, or a giant weed in the hand of a giant gardener. Where it had stood tall and proud, it now lay flat in the air, hanging from the chains, flying slowly and ponderously toward the quay.

“What’s happening?” cried Charlie to one of the harborguys standing near him.

“Stand back!” shouted the man as the mast lurched through the air in their direction. “Way back!”

Charlie gawked. Then as soon as the mast was laid down, and unlikely to knock anyone’s head off, he scampered back up the gangplank onto the deck.

“What’s going on?” he said to one of the sailors.

“Unstepping the masts,” replied the sailor briefly—he was on his way to the base of the second mast. “Didn’t think they’d fit under the bridges of the Seine, did you? We leave ’em here in storage. Pick up the other set at Port St. Louis. Get over, now, I’m busy.”

Charlie gazed in amazement as the second and then the third mast were lifted from their roots, flown through the air, and put down on the quay. That is, until Maccomo called him, wanting him to go to the bursar and remind him that they had been promised extra fresh meat for the lions but hadn’t received the money yet, and telling him to make sure the quartermaster had arranged for the meat to arrive before dawn the next morning, because it was an early start and a long run down to Rouen, and when he’d done that he was to run ashore and get some of Maccomo’s cigarette papers because he was running out.

Charlie was happy as could be to go ashore. The quay was frantic with activity: fresh bread and vegetables coming aboard, sailors refilling the water tanks in the hold through massive hose pipes like gigantic pythons, which flexed and leaped as the water poured through. He found a Tabac—a small shop selling all kinds of smoking things—a street away from the harbor, and found that his French was quite good enough to buy Maccomo’s horrid little papers. All the while he had his eye open for a cat—but nothing. He took a roundabout route back to the quay, but without luck. Where were they all? Surely a harbor should be full of cats? But he could delay no longer—Maccomo would yell at him if he were too late, and Charlie wanted to keep him sweet.

 

Behind a crate full of sardines, although Charlie didn’t know it, Claudine, a very fat little pink-nosed French cat, lay fast asleep with a scrap of paper under her paw. Claudine had accepted half of the marmalade cat’s dinner (on top of her own dinner) in exchange for agreeing to deliver the note to the brown English boy on the crimson ship, but she had eaten so much that she had dozed off. The marmalade cat, having seen his human friends transfered in the dead of night onto a sleek little motorboat, was already heading back to England, happy to know that the letter was on its way.

Claudine was very lazy. Having been up late with the marmalade cat, she slept all day.

 

That evening, as the mad activity of restocking a boat with so many people and animals on board began to wind down, Charlie joined Maccomo in the dining room and drank hot chocolate with him, being friendly and listening to tales of the lion trainers of old. He made a point of thanking Major Thibaudet for taking him on board and giving him the job of lionboy. He chatted with the twins, with Hans and Julius and some of the Italians, who after supper sang and played the mandolin, and everyone joined in. Later he curled up in the ropelocker. Through it all he thought and thought about what would be the best way to handle the job with which the lion had charged him.

All the while, Claudine slept on.

 

Just before dawn, the engines started to shudder and rumble, and the tide turned that would carry the
Circe
up the great, broad, gleaming Seine to Paris. Charlie smelled the bacon frying in the galley, and heard the gulls cawing in the pale first light. With cries and calls and a great churning of water,
Circe
pulled out into the river.

Behind them, a fat little cat rushed to the waterside. Seeing the great ship moving inexorably upriver, a look of great guilt and sadness appeared on her face and she started to cry. Beside her, a scrawny, moldy-looking black dockyard cat, with bald patches on its bottom and sharp blue eyes, told her rudely to stop her yowling.

“Don’t you talk to me!” she said prissily. “The likes of you shouldn’t talk to the likes of me.”

“Well, the likes of you shouldn’t be screeching the whole bliddy place down,” said the rude cat. “Why don’t you just go back to your palace, Madame de bliddy Precious?” Whereupon she stopped yowling, started sniveling instead, and told him at great length and with a lot of repetition that she had every right to be there—which was more than could be said for some who by rights wouldn’t exist at all—and she’d promised to get a message to the boy with the missing parents, and he was sailing away on that boat right there, and if the rude cat had done such a thing he too would be yowling and screeching the place down, and she was so upset about it that she didn’t know what to do.

Then the moldy-looking cat screeched.

“It’ll be
them!
” he exclaimed. “It’ll be
that
boy. We’ve to get that epistle to him at once! You dingwit! How bliddy stupid can yer get! Gimme that!”

Once he had taken the letter from her he was no longer interested in her. He looked after the ship, estimated her speed, looked around at the early-morning traffic, and raced straight to the bus station. With the letter in his teeth, speared on one of his canines, he leaped onto the roof rack of the first electrobus heading south, where he sat and complained without ceasing to the other cats up there about how incompetent the French were. His French was execrable—he was a north of England cat, on his travels—but at least he made the effort to be rude to them in their own language.

 

Charlie, with no knowledge of any of this, had decided what he had to do.

When Maccomo fed the lions that morning, Charlie watched closely, without being observed, to see what he did with the medicine. Five drops in the oldest lion’s water, three for each of the mothers, one for Elsina, and five for the young lion. He watched closely where Maccomo put the medicine (in a small locker in the lionchamber), and he watched closely where Maccomo put the key to that small locker. Then when, after lunch, Maccomo lay down with his crimson cloak around him to smoke his cigarette and doze, Charlie silently tiptoed into the chamber. Once he was certain that Maccomo was asleep, quietly and with great fear in his heart Charlie took Maccomo’s own water flask from where it stood on the floor beside him, emptied it out, and refilled it from the oldest lion’s water bottle—the bottle with the most medicine added. He replaced the bottle by the lion trainer’s side, then he tipped out the rest of the medicined water in the lions’ bottles. The low gurgling sound as the water poured out made Charlie start, but Maccomo didn’t stir.

Most of it went on the floor—it couldn’t be helped. He just hoped Maccomo wouldn’t notice—and he might well not, because it was Charlie who cleaned the cages. Swiftly and silently, he refilled the lions’ drinking bottles with fresh clean water. All the while the young lion and Elsina watched him, and they purred quietly, and Elsina growled gentle phrases of encouragement.

Then they all just had to wait and see what happened. Charlie lay back on his bale of hay and despite everything, began to doze a little himself.

It wasn’t long before Maccomo woke up, thirsty, reached for his flask, and took a long swig. So far so good! Disturbed by the noise, the oldest lion woke up, also thirsty, and took a long swig of his own water. Neither of them seemed to notice any difference.

Julius had said they expected to reach Paris in six days’ time. That meant there were six more opportunities to make and keep Maccomo dopey, and six more days to clear the mind of the oldest lion. If Charlie could pull off this trick again and again, and if the young lion had been right about what was in the medicine, then by the time they reached Paris, the oldest lion would have his spirit back and Maccomo would be constantly tired and dull.

Charlie grinned at the young lion. The young lion whisked his whiskers at Charlie. Step one had been accomplished.

Maccomo yawned, rolled over in his cloak, and went back to sleep.

“Yay!” whispered Charlie, in triumph but trying to be very quiet.

Maccomo began to snore gently. Charlie and the younger lions began to relax. (The lionesses looked on, silently.)

“Charlie,” said Elsina. “Why were your parents taken away? Have they been taken to a circus, like us?”

“Don’t be stupid,” the young lion began. “Humans join circuses because they want to, not because anyone makes them.”

“But, in a way, it’s the same,” Charlie said. “Someone wants them to work for them, perform tricks they don’t want to perform, to hand over their specialness and their skills . . .”

Elsina looked shocked. The lionesses blinked. They understood this, and they felt for Charlie.

Charlie didn’t notice. He had just thought of something.

“Ahh,” he sighed.

The young lion cocked an ear.

“I know what it is,” said Charlie. “At least—I don’t know exactly what it is, but I know . . .” But he stopped himself from telling the lions. He’d twice let his mouth run away from him: giving his name to Major Tib and calling Rafi to be rude and proud. He very much wanted a friend to confide in, but it was too dangerous. Only if he needed to would he tell the lions about the series of letters and numbers written in his mother’s blood. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust them. He just had to be self-controlled about this.

“If you know,” said the lion, “won’t they come after you too?”

Charlie felt cold.

Could Rafi know that he had the formula? Could Rafi know what it was for?

Surely not.

But Charlie knew so little about what was going on . . .

And if Rafi knew, maybe he’d think it was easier to get it out of Charlie than out of his parents.

Why would Rafi want it? He’s just a—no, Charlie, he’s not just an anything. He’s in this up to his ears. Probably he thinks he can sell it or something. He’s your enemy.

Rafi hadn’t called again since the young lion had roared at him—so in that sense, the roaring had worked. But Charlie really had to keep his head down. The circus was a good place to hide, and he should never have risked it by making that phone call!

“You need to talk to a cat,” said the young lion. “Find someone coming the other way and see what’s being said.”

“I can’t go and start yelling in Cat over the side of the ship to some passerby,” said Charlie. “The circusguys and the sailors will think I’m crazy.”

“True,” said the young lion. “Wait till we pull in for the night at Rouen, then you can go and sniff around.”

Charlie nodded, and went back to the ropelocker. He wanted to try the telephones again, just to see if by some miracle someone had called him. But he didn’t. In case Rafi had. “Cocky Slimy Git,” he muttered, but it didn’t work.

He felt very alone.

“My only friends are lions,” he said, trying the idea on for size, and liking it, but finding it quite scary. He wondered if he could confide in Julius, or Hans. He’d like to. Nothing against the lions, but sometimes a boy just wants to talk to another boy. But he couldn’t risk it.

 

Everyone was banned from both the big top and the rehearsal cabins when anybody else was rehearsing, so Charlie hadn’t seen any of the other acts yet, and he longed to. Hans’s kitten apparently did a parachute jump. Whatever plan developed for the lions’ escape, Charlie decided, it would happen
after
the big show in Paris. He might never again have the opportunity to run away with the circus, and he absolutely insisted that he was going to get to see the Show at least.

Of course, what he really wanted was to be
in
it. Flying through the air on the trapeze; topmounter in the Lucidis’ human pyramid, or human cannonball even, in a little velvet suit, landing way over yonder with his face covered in soot and his ears ringing. He wanted to see the Learned Pig being learned. And Madame Barbue—did she just walk in and be bearded? Or did she do tricks too? Tricks with her beard? Julius and Hans and the twins had made it clear that there was a big difference between Acts—people with skills, who did amazing things, and belonged to the circus—and what they called Freaks—people who just sat there looking weird or strange, like a three-legged calf, or the fattest person in the world. If a freaky-looking person had an act, then that was great, they could—and should—be with a circus. But not if they were just there for people to stare at. “It’s easy to feel alone and weird when people are just staring at you,” said the twins in unison. “But if you’re doing something to amuse and amaze them, then you feel good.”

There was so much that Charlie wanted to see. He wanted to watch the audiences’ faces when the ring cage came down, as he scurried from one hole to another, pegging it safely into place so the lions couldn’t escape. He wanted to hear the Calliope whistling and droning down the canal, and through the streets of Paris, so that all the Parisians would be saying “What is that?” and widening their eyes and dropping their shopping bags.